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Just finished Guns, Germs and Steel. An interesting insight into the evolution of world cultures. Some of the ideas are a little out of date, but its an older book with many editions. For history buffs, I highly recommend it.
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Feb 26, 2014 18:58
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The Martian by Andy Weir. It was alright, I guess. A robinsade that takes place on Mars about an accidentally abandoned researcher who has to figure out how he'll survive his predicament and get back to Earth. It's gotten a lot of recent buzz due to being properly reissued (it was previously self-published and free). I felt the narrator's voice became way too precious and cutesy as it wore on, and the whole affair devoid of theme or introspection beyond "poo poo sucked, then I figured out how to fix it". I'd probably have been more receptive had I paid nothing for it; the book would exceed expectations for something released outside the traditional model, but it's not stand-out spectacular.
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Feb 26, 2014 19:22
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moot the hopple posted:The Martian by Andy Weir. So it doesn't go into what he feels about being abandoned or feelings of isolation at all? Sounds more like a work log or something, instead of a diary.
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Feb 26, 2014 22:25
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To some degree, yes, but not really enough to raise the emotional stakes or elicit sympathy for him other than seeing the shittyness of the situation. The narrator generally responds to his setbacks with a tiresome smarminess then goes into problem solving mode. I found it more interesting as an abstract thought experiment of what could go wrong on Mars and how you might Macgyver your way out, less as an examined or thoughtful account of isolation.
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Feb 27, 2014 02:40
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It's interesting you mention a work log though DannyTanner, because other than some third person stuff that happens back on earth, most of The Martian is basically that: journal entries written by the main character in his downtime after things happen, so it doesn't have that "holy poo poo something is going wrong" feel, it's more like "this is what happened, but I figured out how to keep from dying, now on to the next problem", so that affects the feel of the writing as well. It's definitely not intended to be a meditation on humanity and our place in the universe or anything, it's basically MacGuyver on Mars with some hard science thrown in, and that was the appeal for me. I could see how the wittiness could wear thin, but I thought it was charming and helped keep the book from becoming dry or melodramatic. The main character is a sort of cheerful pragmatist, it's mentioned in the book that he was chosen for the mission due to his emotional compatibility with the rest of the team. He did seem like a bit of a self-insert for the author, he's very intelligent and witty, but it worked for me. I loved the book.
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Feb 28, 2014 02:00
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Just finished Sara Maitland's From the Forest (or Gossip from the Forest if you're from anywhere outside the US apparently). The main idea behind the book was the author taking trips through various woodlands in the UK and discussing the connection between fairy stories and the woods. It was pretty good and contained some interesting takes on the more classic fairytales.
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Mar 1, 2014 04:33
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Just finished Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight. Good book, thoroughly enjoyed, but it felt a tad rushed, and while it was a good book in isolation, it was a bit of a letdown as the very last Tiffany Aching novel. 
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Mar 2, 2014 01:30
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The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (2/5): As much as I respect Tolkien's world-building, I don't think he's a very good writer. I found this difficult to get through, despite finding the premise promising. ROY G. BIV, Jude Stewart (2/5): This one is subtitled "an exceedingly surprising book about color" and attempts to catalogue various interesting facts about different colors. It's a well-designed book and sounded like it would be interesting. Unfortunately, it ends up being a collection of trivia, none of which is terrible memorable. The only tidbit I remember from the whole book is why some flamingos are brighter pink than others (short version: diet). I would have preferred a deeper look at fewer facts instead of this more superficial overview. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain (3/5): After an official personality test revealed, to the surprise of none, that I am an introvert, I decided to check this one out. It explores the personality type from various perspectives: psychology, biology, culture, business, etc. On the whole, it was an interesting read, though it ran a bit long in parts. Wyatt fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Nov 17, 2014 |
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Mar 2, 2014 19:56
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I'm on a bit of a bite-size factoid-y binge at the moment - 1227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off which is full of quick little bits from the TV show, fun to flick through every now and then (there's even a website to look up the sources for everything), and Economics In Minutes by Niall Kishtainy, a book that feels like a bunch of stripped-down Wikipedia articles, but they're linked together fairly well, and I got it pretty cheap anyway, plus it includes all manner of things from global economies to cartels to a goon favourite, sunk-cost fallacies.
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Mar 5, 2014 00:44
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I can't get enough of are Dan
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Finished Tim Winton's Cloud Street a couple of days ago. The prose is a lot more descriptive, almost flowery than his young adult stuff. The story had a lot of parallels to my Mum's upbringing and I think that made it hit pretty hard in places. Great Australian read, might be a bit hard to understand for others.
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Mar 5, 2014 03:24
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Just finished George Saunders's Tenth of December. I had to read it for a writing class I'm taking at the moment, and I was expecting a lot from it because of all the praise I've seen given for it. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have finished it. The two friends I've talked to about it so far disagree with me, but I thought this book was annoying as hell. I thought Saunders had a lot of good ideas in here - good stories to tell, especially the first and last stories, which would have been good if handled by any number of other writers - but his moments of plain pretty language (because I think he actually is pretty decent with words, which makes his style so much more disappointing) don't remotely justify his weird mutation of a vernacular that's already grating. My roommate told me he didn't think Saunders is as pretentious as a bunch of the other writers he'd read, but, to the contrary, I don't think I've seen this level of pretension since Franzen; it's tough to intuit that he might actually be railing against anything in particular on a consistent basis because no one actually puts words together the way he and his characters do. For some reason this reminded me of DFW, only the heart of it is buried under multiple extra layers of shallow, unreadable quirkiness. There was one story that was flat-out good-as-it-is in here, but it was two pages long and so I struggle to even call it a "story." All Nines fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Mar 7, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 06:42
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Started and finished Mockingjay last night. I know it's YA and all (I read it with my niece, who also thought it was dumb), but god drat what a loving mess of a book. The first third is boring, the second third is kind of okay (unless you are a redshirt introduced a page earlier), and the last third is just wtf levels of nonsense.
BrosephofArimathea fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Mar 10, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 23:35
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Ancillary Justice: I enjoyed the concept of the AI losing it's part and also the conceit that due to the gender of the culture it was from everyone it referred was described using the feminine gender. The only shame is that it it seems to be a set up for person + ship explore later, whereas the whole AI fighting against itself is much more interesting. The Atrocity Archives: You definitely tell it is one of Stross' early books as the writing doesn't seem as smooth as Rule 34 and some of the characters and characterisation can be pretty wank, although having looked ahead it at other book in the Laundry series it does seem like he improves upon that. I do like the concept of computer and maths based magic in a sense but I cringed every time some outdated computer slang was used. Lexicon: Fairly enjoyable thriller about words, although personally I'd much rather it'd been less of an action style thriller and more focussed on how the organisation uses the words to influence people. The Rabbit Back Literature Society: Lightly funny and wandering in a magical realism sort of way, the story is really through different people's experiences of the past.
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Mar 7, 2014 17:00
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Geokinesis posted:Ancillary Justice: I enjoyed the concept of the AI losing it's part and also the conceit that due to the gender of the culture it was from everyone it referred was described using the feminine gender. The only shame is that it it seems to be a set up for person + ship explore later, whereas the whole AI fighting against itself is much more interesting. I totally agree with both of these assessments- still looking forward to the rest of the AJ series, though.
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Mar 7, 2014 17:34
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Just finished Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Holy crap, that was bad.
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Mar 9, 2014 22:50
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Talas posted:Just finished Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Holy crap, that was bad. The TV show of the book series is set to premiere this year: http://www.starz.com/originals/outlander What did you not like about the book? I'm considering reading it finally. The author is currently posting bits of her next book in the series on her Facebook page. There's just something about her writing that bugs me but I can't quite put my finger on it.
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Mar 10, 2014 03:07
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girlwithgloves posted:The TV show of the book series is set to premiere this year: http://www.starz.com/originals/outlander Well, you're either the kind of person who can enjoy a thousand page historical romance novel set in Scotland during their last failed war for independence from the English about a time-traveling woman from the 20th century or you're not. It's definitely not high-brow material.
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Mar 10, 2014 12:08
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girlwithgloves posted:The TV show of the book series is set to premiere this year: http://www.starz.com/originals/outlander A lot of people seems to like it a lot and I can see why. Still, some parts of the story are good, like the castle conspiracies, but the book just goes on and on and on and on...
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Mar 11, 2014 02:24
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Just finished The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Really enjoyed it. I remember the movie getting slammed though despite being pretty similar and lifting dialogue directly from the source. Was there anything apart from the weird romance plot that people particularly hated? It's been a while since I saw the movie so may have forgotten.
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Mar 11, 2014 10:13
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Just finished:Andrzej Sapkowski posted:The Last Wish
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Mar 11, 2014 10:34
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Dugong posted:Just finished The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Really enjoyed it. I remember the movie getting slammed though despite being pretty similar and lifting dialogue directly from the source. Was there anything apart from the weird romance plot that people particularly hated? It's been a while since I saw the movie so may have forgotten. I think some people didn't like the changes they made to the story, to make it work better as a film. What they seem to forget is that a movie is something entirely different from a book so it needed some changing, and that Adams wrote a lot of the changes himself before he died. It was a bit more streamlined and hollywood than the book. Oh, and Ford was a black guy. I don't really know, I thought the movie was pretty good myself. It's definetly a difficult story to translate to a movie, with all it's million digressions.
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Mar 11, 2014 14:44
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Attitude Indicator posted:I think some people didn't like the changes they made to the story, to make it work better as a film. What they seem to forget is that a movie is something entirely different from a book so it needed some changing, and that Adams wrote a lot of the changes himself before he died. It was a bit more streamlined and hollywood than the book. Oh, and Ford was a black guy. The casting of Mos Def as Ford was actually pretty good even though it didn't match the description of Ford in the books, because he is from New York. Ford's unexpurgated Guide entry for the Earth states that the best thing you can do when first arriving is go to New York and work as a taxi driver because nobody will care what you look like so long as you can speak English. In the context of the movie, you can assume that he did that himself and picked up the accent.
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Mar 11, 2014 17:15
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Space for Hire by William F. Nolan. Eh, not my style at all. Essentially a "hard-boiled detective in space" story, written tongue-in-cheek. The problem for me is that I don't like the "hard-boiled detective" genre and the "sho' nuff boss" dialogue at the beginning was seriously off-putting. I have the sequel and no interest in reading it, so they'll both probably get donated to Friends of the Library this weekend.
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Mar 11, 2014 23:13
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Attitude Indicator posted:I think some people didn't like the changes they made to the story, to make it work better as a film. What they seem to forget is that a movie is something entirely different from a book so it needed some changing, and that Adams wrote a lot of the changes himself before he died. It was a bit more streamlined and hollywood than the book. Oh, and Ford was a black guy. I think it's a drat good adaptation myself. I feel like some people might have thought Sam Rockwell wasn't the right fit for Zaphod, but I thought he gave a hilarious performance. Also Alan Rickman was absolutely perfect as Marvin's voice.
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Mar 11, 2014 23:26
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Considering that Martin Freeman is pretty much lab-bred to play "everyman" characters like Arthur Dent and Bilbo Baggins, it's a huge compliment to say that Mos Def is the best casting decision of the entire movie. He's fantastic in the role, and who the hell cares if Ford is black or American or anything — he's a goddamn alien anyway!
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Mar 12, 2014 05:01
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Just finished 14 by Peter Clines. Guy moves into an apartment and notices some strange things. He starts snooping around and working with the other tenants to investigate their home and things get a lot crazier than they ever expected. It's a fun book, reminded me of the TV show Lost except the characters in the book actually communicate and as far as I can tell just about every mystery in the book gets a decent answer. bowser fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 13, 2014 00:12
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Just finished Sense & Sensibility for the second time. I still like it, but not as much as some of Austen's other works (although also considerably more than Mansfield Park). It just doesn't feel as fully fleshed out character-wise as the other ones, and there are fewer truly funny moments. Marianne can also be incredibly annoying. I think I'm going to read The Austen Project adaptation next. Opinions seem to be considerably mixed, but I'll see how I get on.
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Mar 13, 2014 17:54
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Finished the first volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson last night. It was a blast, I enjoyed it a lot. It's packed with detail not only are there something like 100 pages of footnotes, sources and such in the back, but Caro and his wife actually moved to the Texas plains to get a feel for the place where LBJ grew up and talk to the locals. And even though it's over 700 pages and you already have a good idea of what's going to happen, Caro's able to keep his narrative moving and engaging. The chapter covering 1941 senate election, for example, would make for a good book itself: it was a close race between LBJ and Texas Governor W. Lee O'Daniel and ended in chaos, bribery and crooked voting. It's a wild read.
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Mar 13, 2014 21:47
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barkingclam posted:Finished the first volume of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson last night. It was a blast, I enjoyed it a lot. It's packed with detail not only are there something like 100 pages of footnotes, sources and such in the back, but Caro and his wife actually moved to the Texas plains to get a feel for the place where LBJ grew up and talk to the locals. And even though it's over 700 pages and you already have a good idea of what's going to happen, Caro's able to keep his narrative moving and engaging. The chapter covering 1941 senate election, for example, would make for a good book itself: it was a close race between LBJ and Texas Governor W. Lee O'Daniel and ended in chaos, bribery and crooked voting. It's a wild read. I'm so tempted to start this series bit it is remarkably long and I'm a horribly slow reader. I don't think I'd ever finish 
bowser fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 00:00
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Having a kindle has totally revitalized my reading habit. Over the last two weeks: The Why Axis (my jam, well-written esp. relative to e.g. Nudge), The Management Myth (really great intellectual history/takedown of the management genre), Antifragile (Nassim Taleb is not a great writer), The Checklist Manifesto (interesting idea, really quick read), The Signal and the Noise (so good!), the Big Short (also good!), LIar's Poker (guilty pleasures), The Ocean at the End of the Lane (really standard Neil Gaiman, which is not a bad thing, just not unexpected -- slightly less rich world than some of his others). I need to start reading more fiction and less pop-academic discipline books.
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Mar 14, 2014 09:19
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I love John le Carre and his approach to writing 'spy fiction'. I use the inverted commas because his work is as far removed from the Bonds and Bournes as it is possible to be. His spy's are not rough and ready übermensch but sad lonely bureaucrats trapped In a game they can never fully comprehend. I've no idea if this is an accurate portrayal or not, but it certainly feels like it. A Delicate Truth is focused on how intelligence gathering and secret operations are being farmed out to private military contractors, and the uneasy relationship these organisations have with those in elected office. Reading this book you certainly sense that this is an issue le Carre is passionate about. Maybe a little too passionate . The villains in this piece are portrayed as villains, with no shade of grey cast upon them. They are uncompromisingly rotten with no redeeming features while the good guys are scrupulously moral. That's said the plot is suitably fast paced and the issues are obviously extensively researched. What I loved about this book and the books of le Carre generally, is that there are never winners and losers. Life is never so simple, and whatever successes are gained are usually pyrrhic at best. A Delicate Truth is a great book, that could of been better if the author had tried to be a touch more even handed with his characters, and tried to make the villains a bit more three dimensional.
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Mar 14, 2014 13:09
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bowser posted:I'm so tempted to start this series but it's is remarkably long and I'm a horribly slow reader. I don't think I'd ever finish It's a long read, but if you pace yourself and spread it out, it's not terribly hard to follow, you just have to trust where Caro's taking you. It's just a very in-depth biography: at one point he writes a history of settlement in the Texas hill country, at another he writes mini biographies of Sam Rayburn, W. Lee O'Daniel and the Kleburg family. It's tempting to skip over these, but they also help explain where Johnson came from and Texas' raw, brutal state politics. It took me the better part of a month to read it, but I found it rewarding and compelling: as soon as Johnson wraps one thing up, he's already embroiled in something else.
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Mar 14, 2014 15:46
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Viruses vs. Superbugs Aimed at the lay-person. Covers the history of bacteriophage therapy and its current standing. Interesting and enjoyable. Bacteriophages in the Control of Food- and Waterborne Pathogens Aimed at professionals. Highly informative!
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Mar 15, 2014 18:08
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I've just finished The Name of the Wind. It's the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicles. It kept me interested all the way through, the only thing I could really complain about was that it seemed to drag on a little too long. At 750 pages for the first book in the series it seemed a little excessive but to each their own I suppose.
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Mar 15, 2014 21:33
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Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan. It was an entertaining read, for the most part. But I was kind of bugged out that he completely glossed over all the atrocities that the current government has committed, when he did such a good job of giving Mao's regime the middle finger. The ending wasn't all that great, either, to be honest. The last 60 pages felt really rushed.
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Mar 16, 2014 17:27
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CyberStorm by Matthew Mather. As the title suggests, there's a cyber attack that hits the US and stuff falls apart as technology grinds to a stop and basic soceity goes down the pan. Then lots of grim survival things happen (yep we have some good old cannibal action people) as things just get worse. Follows a group of people from a New York apratment, because that's how it goes. Overall, it was very much OK. Some decent pointz about technology, privacy/freedom and the risks of cyberwar. However it's all points that pretty much everyone will alread be familar with. All first order, simple brush stuff that could have been done better. The whole struggling to survive thing isn't really my bag but it seemed to be vaguely realistic. Oh and I'd bet the main character is an author self insert (also has M.M. initials).
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Mar 17, 2014 22:51
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ulvir posted:Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out by Mo Yan. It was an entertaining read, for the most part. But I was kind of bugged out that he completely glossed over all the atrocities that the current government has committed, when he did such a good job of giving Mao's regime the middle finger. The ending wasn't all that great, either, to be honest. The last 60 pages felt really rushed. It is so much easier to satirise and say that the last regime was bad then it is too be critical of the current one. Mo Yan already toes a very fine line and does not want to end up on the wrong side of the party. He gets flack for it though, but its really easy to be critical of these things when its not your life on the line. Remember that Master and Margarita was published well after Bulgakov's death.
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Mar 18, 2014 12:43
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After dark by haruki murakami. Lol.... bet I almost had you there! Actually I read Star Wars: The Cestus Deception (audiobook format), yet another masterpiece in a stunningly brilliant series. I couldn't read boring sh*t like that first oen if my life depended on it!!
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Mar 19, 2014 01:30
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Stravinsky posted:It is so much easier to satirise and say that the last regime was bad then it is too be critical of the current one. Mo Yan already toes a very fine line and does not want to end up on the wrong side of the party. He gets flack for it though, but its really easy to be critical of these things when its not your life on the line. Remember that Master and Margarita was published well after Bulgakov's death. Yeah, China still cracks down hard on dissidents. Between surveillance, threats of physical violence and disappearing people, it's not a safe place. Ai Weiwei, who is an artist of enough renown that the government commissioned him to help design the national stadium for the Olympics, was imprisoned for 81 days without any charges being filed. The government later downplayed the whole thing as "some kind of tax fraud matter". If they'd do that to an artist who is that much in the public eye, there is no chance for anyone else if they decide to be too direct in their criticism. Given that, I don't blame anyone for being careful over there. As far as books go, I just finished The Ghost Bride by Yangzhe Choo and had mixed feelings about it. I loved the setting, genteel family politics and the whole bureaucracy/corruption in the land of the dead stuff but the ending was underwhelming for me. I just wish the second half of the book was more than: Li Lan gets in trouble, Er Lang saves her, repeat 10 times, the end. I kinda wish Li Lan herself was more responsible for fixing her own situation rather than always needing to be rescued. Over all though, it's not a bad book.
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Mar 19, 2014 18:23
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So I'm about 18% of the way through 2666. It's 'ok' but mostly boring. Does it pick up at some point?
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Mar 19, 2014 20:12
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